The concept of punishment
The progress of civilization has resulted in a vast change alike in the theory and in the method of punishment. In primitive society punishment was left to the individuals wronged or their families, and was vindictive or retributive: in quantity and quality it would bear no special relation to the character or gravity of the offence.
Gradually there would arise the idea of proportionate punishment, of which the characteristic type is an eye for an eye. The second stage was punishment by individuals under the control of the state, or community; in the third stage, with the growth of law, the state took over the primitive function and provided itself with the machinery of justice for the maintenance of public order. Henceforward crimes are against the state, and the exaction of punishment by the wronged individual is illegal. Even at this stage the vindictive or retributive character of punishment remains, but gradually, and specially after the humanist movement under thinkers like Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, new theories begin to emerge. Two chief trains of thought have combined in the condemnation of primitive theory and practice. On the one hand the retributive principle itself has been very largely superseded by the protective and the reformative; on the other punishments involving bodily pain have become objectionable to the general sense of society. Consequently corporal and even capital punishment occupy a far less prominent position, and tend everywhere to disappear. It began to be recognized also that stereotyped punishments, such as belong to penal codes, fail to take due account of the particular condition of an offence and the character and circumstances of the offender. A fixed fine, for example, operates very unequally on rich and poor.
Punishment can be divided into Positive punishment (the application of an aversive stimulus, such as pain) and Negative punishment (the removal or denial of a desired object, condition, or aversive stimulus).
Criminal punishment
- Socio-economical punishments: fines or loss
of income confiscation demotion, suspension or expulsion
(especially in a strict hierarchy, such as military or clergy)
restriction or loss of civic and other rights retribution is
community service
- Custodial sentences include imprisonment and
other forms of forced detention (e.g., involuntary institutional
psychiatry) and hard labour are in fact also physical
punishments, even if no actual beatings are in force internally;
note that behavioural psychologists do not consider prison a
sound punishment because most criminals are repeat offenders,
thus, their behaviour has not changed. If the behaviour does not
change then any stimulus that was presented is not punishment
just aversive.
Public humiliation often combines social elements with corporal punishment, and indeed often punishments from two or more categories are combined (especially when these are meant reinforce each-other's effect) as in the logic of penal harm. In the past, people in some parts of the Western world were punished by being put in the stocks, or by being ducked in water.
- Corporal punishment. Legality of these types of
punishment varies from country to country. However it can be defined
more widely:
- Whipping or caning with various implements and on
various body parts Marking via branding or mutilations such as
amputation of a finger or arm.
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, the most extreme form of punishment, sometimes used in countries where beating is seen as inhumane. See use of death penalty worldwide. Methods of capital punishment include crucifixion, hanging, the firing squad, burning at the stake, lethal injection, gas chambers, beheading "by guillotine or axe", and starvation, among others.
Recommended Reading
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